Abstract

Mechanical and acoustical consequences of removal of the soundpost in the violin were examined using (a) experimental modal analysis on a violin with (SP) and without soundpost (no‐SP) to examine the approximately 50 modes observed over a 0‐ to 2‐kHz range and (b) boundary element radiation calculations of radiation efficiency and directivity for each normal mode. A majority of modes were tracked between SP and no‐SP states by correlating frequency, damping, mode shape, and interviolin MAC values. On removal of the soundpost, (a) mode frequencies below 1 kHz usually dropped a few percent, while those above increased similarly, (b) average mechanical response at the bridge increased 14%, (c) average radiation efficiency dropped 17%, most noticeably from 500 to 800 Hz, especially for a very strong corpus SP mechanical mode at ∼550 Hz whose radiation efficiency dropped from 0.105 to 0.022, and (d) radiation patterns altered substantially. A vibration‐radiation model to simulate response curves agreed well with general features of previous SP violin response and radiativity measurements, and with Fourier analysis of recorded SP and no‐SP slide tones. Calculated SP radiation patterns were also compared to previous violin directivity measurements.